There have been some fast bowlers who are far more comfortable with the kookaburra ball and struggle using the red duke ball for Tests even though the fact that red duke helps fast bowlers more. In Ashes 2005 and Ashes 2009, I've read articles where Australian fast bowlers say that they don't understand the dynamics of red duke ball.

Zaheer Khan is one of the bowlers I know who is ineffective with Kookaburra but uses the red duke beautifully. Steyn is not as dangerous with red duke than with kookaburra.

Can someone explain me the dynamics of these 2 balls in brief?

15-06-2013, 03:14 AM

Migara

Not only fast bowlers, spinners also struggle with some balls. Kookabura, Duke and SG are the balls that were uses usually. Almost every spinner is happy with the Duke, but Murali was unhappy with the SG. That may have been the reason why he was ordinary against India in India, but was running circles around the same batsmen in SL with the Kookabura. Conversely Harbhajan and Kumble must have struggled with the Kookabura. Their performance is SL even worse than that of Murali's in India. But with SG they were world beaters. And mind you, India and SL have similar pitches. In SL, there may be bit of more swing due to heavy atmosphere.

15-06-2013, 03:59 AM

LongHopCassidy

The Duke has a much more durable seam, for better or worse. Thicker stitching and higher seam both very much favour conventional swing bowlers (Anderson and Hoggard in particular). I think the results are more variable for spin, since players get accustomed to gripping one kind of ball and base their action on how it comes out of the hand.

15-06-2013, 04:38 AM

Cabinet96

I think you have to be careful to suggest that someone like Steyn is automatically more effective with a Kookaburra than a Duke. There are other factors that come into play, such as pitches, opposition quality etc. He's also played just five tests with a Duke.

I remember Warne saying he preferred the Kookaburra though, as the more prominent seam on the Duke meant it was harder to bowl with a newish ball.

16-06-2013, 09:06 AM

Expressway76

Everything I've heard about the Kookaburra indicates that it's inferior for swing and seam and that it has less durability. Maybe when pace bowlers switch to the Duke after using the Kookaburra they're just struggling with the slight changes they need to make with their grip and with the change in pitches and conditions?